Auth: Laura Z Hobson
Pub: Warner Books, 1975
Consenting Adult is ‘a warm-hearted mother-and-son novel with a significant difference: this is about a mother and a homosexual son’ (John Barkham review).
The novel is written to cover the 1960s: that period of the homosexual revolutionary explosion, both in terms of the fight for rights and (more importantly) the medical fraternity’s acceptance that being homosexual is (and was) not a ‘medical problem.’
Though I did not read this book until the 1980s, its importance to me, a child (now a man) who grew up in that time frame cannot be expressed. This book brought home to me the problems I had had while growing up and allied to this the horrors of growing up without having access to information about being gay – the repression that 1 had as a personality, and its effect on my whole development.
It may well be that people will ask what relevance this book has, in these times of enlightenment and information. I believe it is of vital importance, as the government has denied access to information in schools for gays, and in other ways. Also, the local campaign by some factions to stop counselling centres from opening, shows that bigots still abound, and ignorance on homosexual matters persists.
This book should be on the shelves of every school and local library, and also on the shelf of every reputable counsellor!
I also recommend it without reservation to every homosexual, whether in or out: it is a riveting read.
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